they had talked in a most unteenage way of fresh air and birds and flowers. She had wondered more than once if they had talked it over in that disconcertingly parental way one’s children sometimes did, deciding that it would be a good thing for her to move, to get away from Paul and his new wife. Not that she minded, all that much, seeing them together. When a marriage is over it is over. She was enjoying her new found independence.
She lay back on the pillows and closed her eyes. In her dream she had walked down the path between the beds of herbs and cottagy things like delphiniums and hollyhocks to the long grass at the end of the garden where there were three ancient apple trees. It was waiting for her there: the most beautiful white horse. Without saddle or bridle, its mane like soft silk, it walked up to her and thrust its velvet muzzle into her hands, blowing gently on her fingers. This was the strange part. All her life she had been afraid of horses. Not that she knew any well, but even from a safe distance, though undoubtedly attractive creatures, they looked strong and uncontrollable and dangerous.
Here her dream became stranger still. After flinging her arms around the animal’s neck and kissing it as though it were an old friend she somehow vaulted onto its back, feeling the muscular flanks of the animal beneath her bare legs, winding her fingers into the mane and leaning forward to whisper in its ear. It listened, it raised its head and pricked its ears, then it turned and strode purposefully towards the open (open? it had never been opened) gate. In her dream she was not afraid. She leaned low, encouraging it to go faster as the horse moved smoothly from trot to canter and finally into a gallop, taking her down the fields, across ditches and through gates and on towards the Downs.
By the time they returned her face was flushed, her hair tangled and her legs ached, but she was so, so happy. Slipping off the horse in the garden she kissed its nose and tiptoed up over the dewy grass and in through the back door where the children, music quiet at last, lay asleep.
Staring up at the ceiling, disorientated, she lay still for a moment, then, throwing back the bedclothes she walked across to her dressing table. Turning on the lamp she peered at her face. It was flushed and her hair was wild and tangled, but surely she looked like that every morning? Everyone did when they awoke. She examined her hands. No sign. Of course no sign of their fierce strong grip on the mane, no smell – she raised them cautiously to her nose – of horse.
With a sigh she turned and climbed back into bed.
‘You’re nuts, Mum!’ Mat reached for the cereal box and tipped a helping onto his plate. ‘You can’t take up riding at your age. Besides, you hate horses!’
‘Shut up, Mat!’ Lyn poured herself her own breakfast – a single cup of black coffee. ‘Of course Mum can learn to ride. Everyone ought to take up something new at her age.’
‘Thanks,’ Chris’s dry acknowledgement was lost in the twins’ banter.
‘She might fall off and break her leg or something.’
‘Nonsense. She’d be brilliant.’
I will be brilliant. She didn’t say it out loud. They weren’t listening anyway. Smiling tolerantly she chivvied them out of the house and went to get ready for work. As a part-time receptionist at the local surgery she had found herself the most perfect job she could have wished for. She had met practically everybody in the village and already knew most of their life histories.
Her colleague behind the reception desk that morning, Anita, knew Sandra Hodge, the woman who ran the local riding school. In a lull between patients Chris rang up and booked her first lesson before she had a chance to change her mind.
The horse was brown, its coat muddy; it wore a saddle and bridle and when she reached out her hand to stroke its nose it put its ears back and shook its head. She listened intently to the instructions on how to mount, thankful that this first lesson was on her own and not in front of twenty small girls who rode like angels or demons. Even mounting the thing proved a problem. Her foot would not reach the stirrup – it was too high and each time she tried, the horse side-stepped away from her leaving her hopping frantically in space.
Sandra grew bored more quickly than the horse. ‘Come over here to the mounting block.’ In seconds, much chastened, she was on. This horse was far fatter than her own Moonlight, as she had christened him, the stirrup leathers cut her legs through her jeans and its action as she was led out into the ring was jerky and uncomfortable. All her confidence had long since oozed away.
‘Sit straight. Relax. Hold the reins as I showed you. Sit down into the saddle. Don’t lean forward…’ The string of instructions assailed her like machine gun fire. Her legs began to ache long before the lesson was over. When the time came to dismount she nearly collapsed as her feet met the oh-so distant ground.
‘Not bad.’ Sandra gave her a tight smile. ‘If you want to persevere I’m sure you’ll get the hang of it. In the end.’
Get the hang of it – she, who had galloped, bent low over her horse’s neck, through the moonlit countryside, the wind in her hair, and guided the horse with nothing more than the gentle pressure of her knees! Angrily she fumbled with the buckle of her borrowed hard hat and vowed never to return.
She managed a long hot bath before Mat and Lyn arrived home. It wasn’t easy to hide her crippling stiffness but smiling determinedly she staggered round the kitchen and was relieved that, engrossed in college gossip, they did not notice. If they had she would never have heard the end of it.
She was doing an afternoon shift the next day, so in the morning, after the twins had left for college, she walked down the garden towards the apple trees. It had been a wet warm month and the lush grass and leaves had grown like tropical jungle. The next thing she had to learn was gardening.
She stopped by the tree where she had first seen the white horse, staring round the sun-dappled grass. What had triggered her dream? Nothing that she could see as she walked on under the apple boughs towards the back gate. The latch was rusty and bent. It took her several minutes of determined rattling and shoving to release it and force the gate open a few inches. Outside the field of green wheat, fresh and rippling like the sea, stretched away for miles. Around the edge there was a narrow track. She stepped onto it, staring round, trying to identify the landscape of her dreams. But it was no use. It all looked different in the bright warm sunlight.
She was just turning in at the gate once more when her eye was caught by something at her feet. Staring down she felt her stomach lurch with surprise. Cut deep in the sandy soil of the path she could see the shape of a large hoof print.
Of course, people must ride round the field. Why else would there be such a well-marked path? She cast round for other signs of passing horses but in spite of the soft ground there were none and puzzled, she made her way back into the garden.
The dream returned that night and as though remembering her riding lesson she hesitated as they turned out of the gate and guiding the horse with her legs and her balance she headed off the path and into the field. Cantering circles in each direction as she had seen some of the other students do in the distance, she listened to the rustle of its feet in the long sweet corn and watched the moonshadows stretch and turn across the ground in front of her. Only when they had done that did she lean forward and whisper in the horse’s ear and turn it for the gallop towards the Downs.
Her next lesson was very different from the first. Different instructor, different horse. ‘I’m sorry, Mrs Hodge had to go to London for the day.’ Horse and teacher this time were both attractive, slim, long-haired and kind. Chris giggled to herself as the comparison flitted through her head and forgetting to be afraid she ruffled the mane of her new mount. ‘I’m sorry, Mrs Hodge didn’t say how much experience you’d had.’ The girl walked over to the barrier round the indoor school and reached for the saddle she had left there.
‘No. Please. Can I try without?’ Chris, left holding the bridle, whispered to the horse, which hadn’t tried to bite her. It twitched its ears attentively. ‘I haven’t had much practice, to be honest, but most of what I have done in the past has been with no saddle.’
The girl let the heavy saddle fall back on its resting place. ‘Great. Good training for you. Bring her over here so you can get on.’
The same mounting block. No stirrups. Not letting herself think Chris threw herself upwards and vaulted lightly onto the horse’s back, gathering up the reins.
‘Great. Canter her round the circle.’ The girl sat down on the mounting block and prepared to watch.
Chris took a deep breath. This felt more familiar, and it had been so easy in her dream. A gentle squeeze with her legs, a chirrup at the eager ears.
The horse broke straight into a canter, loping easily round the sawdust ring, responding to her every move. To her surprise and delight she loved it. It was easy, exciting – not as exciting as being outside, but still exciting.